David Herbert Lawrence&rsquo;s &quot;The Plumed Serpent&quot; is the story of an Aztec pagan revolution that spreads through Mexico during the time of the Mexican Revolution (the 1910s). Published in 1926, it also has themes of anti-capitalism, anti-Americanism, romanticism, nationalism, and primal and traditional roles for men and women.<br /><br />The protagonist is 40-year-old Kate Leslie, the widow of an Irish revolutionary. She&rsquo;s not particularly close to her grown children from her first husband, and seeking solitude and change in the midst of her grief she settles temporarily in Mexico.<br /><br />Soon she meets Don Ram&oacute;n Carrasco, an intellectual who&rsquo;s attempting to rid the country of Christianity and capitalism and replace them with the cult of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl (&ldquo;<i>the plumed serpent</i>&rdquo;) and Mexican nationalism. He&rsquo;s assisted in his vision by Don Cipriano Viedma, a general in the Mexican army. Ram&oacute;n provides the leadership, poetry, and propaganda that helps the movement take off, and Cipriano lends a military counterpoint...